What's the secret to great accessibility?

This year we invited you to take part in The Access Survey 2015, and the results are in! Together with our friends at Disabled Access Day, we wanted to find out your opinions of searching for disabled access information, and to discover what factors might influence whether or not you try out a new place for the first time, or indeed whether you go back. The findings were clear: venues can benefit from providing accessibility information, and when they do they’ll wonder why they didn’t do it sooner.

One of the biggest findings from this survey was that the vast majority of respondents would want to return to a venue again if they felt it had good accessibility. 98% of people who took part would be likely or very likely to make a second visit; but how do disabled people, their friends and families know if a place they want to visit is going to be accessible to them or not?

More than half of our respondents told us they avoid going places if they can’t find access information that is relevant to them. This means that a sentence saying a venue has disabled access isn’t doing the trick. Somewhere that is accessible to one person may be completely inaccessible to another, and this needs to be reflected in the information a venue provides; particularly as nearly 70% of respondents are accompanied by friends and family which means venues that appear inaccessible, even when they may not be, are losing out on big business.

The secret to good accessibility therefore, starts with the information provided by the venue. 71% of respondents agreed that alongside physical adjustments, staff training and signage; provision of information was one way in which venues could improve their accessibility. A venue’s website was by far the most popular way for people to search for information according to findings. Respondents also trusted word of mouth to get the information they needed, and 70% of people would be more likely to visit somewhere new if somebody with similar requirements had recommended it to them.

Venues that list on Euan’s Guide are making the most of this word of mouth effect by inviting visitors to share their experiences and pictures with others on the website. As well as creating a platform for people to talk about their business, venues can share their accessibility information clearly by using the Euan’s Guide template.

Now that we’ve brought this year’s survey to a close, we’d like to thank everybody who took part and encourage you to keep spreading the word by writing reviews so that others will know what to expect before trying somewhere new for the first time! The full results are available for you to download below.